Writer's Notes (7/4/16): Chapters 1-4 have been edited and reorganized somewhat. I originally had no intention to add the Scythe from Season 7 to this story, but my characters had different ideas. I've made it part of the "Chosen One's" legacy and had Wesley help her find it shortly before he died. This caused me to have to go back and retroactively add it to some earlier scenes. I corrected some typos and smoothed out some rough areas while I was at it. Enjoy. All comments, critiques, suggestions and observations welcome.

THE MASTER:

The ancient nosferatu was born in the Carpathian Mountains during the height of the Roman Empire. He'd long forgotten the name he'd been given when he was alive, but for the past seven hundred years, he'd gone by the name Heinrich Nest. To his followers, children and enemies, however, he was merely the Master.

On Thursday evening, as he rose from the pool of blood that was his customary repose in the small cavern that had been his cell for the past century, he smiled gently at the woman who knelt before him. She was his favorite. In all his long life, he'd only had one other favorite and Selene had betrayed him. Darla, however, had been his favorite since the day he found her, a poor prostitute dying of a venereal disease. Even if her cursed progeny, Angelus, never showed him the deference, respect and obedience he deserved, Darla had never failed to give him her very best.

"Welcome, child." The Master's voice was deep and resonant. "I trust your mission has been successful."

She looked up to him adoringly. "It has, Master. The Black Queen suspects you're up to something, but she knows nothing of the Harvest. Her purpose for being in Sunnydale has nothing to do with us. I believe she intends to use the alignment and proximity to the Hellmouth to perform some blood magic ritual. I haven't been able to learn much about it, but I believe it requires the blood of a Slayer."

He nodded. "Excellent. What of the news that Blade has been seen in town?"

She frowned. "Our agents monitoring the Bronze tell me he was seen visiting Angelus only days ago in the company of three teenagers . . . probably three of the Slayers he's been traveling with lately. He could be a problem, but if he interferes tomorrow, his blood will join that of Angelus and the others as it empowers you."

The Master took a seat on the throne-like chair. "The dhampyr and the traitor have been associates for many years. I agree that we need to take additional precautions, but I'm not overly concerned about his presence in Sunnydale at this time. In fact, even if he survives the Harvest, I look forward to the end of our rivalry with great anticipation and pleasure once I complete my apotheosis."

Off to the side, one of the newest members of the nest felt great anticipation of his own. Jesse McNally had the great misfortune to run into Darla in an otherwise vacant park after leaving the Bronze Sunday. He was taking a shortcut on the way home after being brutally rejected by Cordelia and laughed at by all her preppy friends. When Darla came on to him, he thought it was his lucky night. Then her face changed and his life ended.

That had been three days ago. He figured his friends Xander and Willow would be at the Bronze Friday night. More importantly, the beautiful Cordelia would be there. She so brutally spurned his advances that he was looking forward to the look of terror that would cross her face just before he killed her. Her rejection was bad enough, but no one laughed at him . . . at least not any longer. He would teach her . . . and the sluts she hung out with. Of course, he realized they belonged to the Vessel, but that didn't mean he couldn't play with them a bit before turning them over to whoever the Master chose. They would regret their rejection of him, then they would die.

The Master addressed his gathered faithful. "It is time to choose the Vessel. I've dwelt long and hard on this and have decided to use Luke."

The massive vampire stepped forward and knelt at the Master's feet. "I am humbled, Master. I will proudly serve as the extension of your will and tool of the destruction of your enemies. I won't let you down."

The Master placed a hand gently on his fanatically loyal servant's head. "I know you won't, Luke. Go and prepare yourself. In two days, you will rise in my name and vanquish my enemies, obtaining for me the power I need to escape this prison and complete the process began over a century ago. Once transformed, I will lead us into the world above; not as outcasts, but as conquerors."

Cheers roared throughout the chamber and he paused to bask in it before continuing. "Rise, Darla, and take your place at my right hand. My charge to you is, if anything, even more important. You are to lead our force. It will be your hand that is to deliver the traitor, Angelus, to the Vessel. Even as Luke will represent me on that night, so will you; perhaps even more so. How goes the recruitment?"

She smiled reverently as she stepped up and turned to face the crowd from beside the throne. "Permit me to introduce our newest member, Master. Jesse, step forward and present yourself."

Jesse walked up and knelt as he'd been told. These were powerful people and he didn't mind showing them respect. In time, they would make him powerful beyond all his pathetic dreams. "I am honored, Master."

"With him," Darla continued, "our numbers exceed one hundred and fifty loyal servants. Over a hundred are present in this city for your ascension. With your permission, I would take the bulk of them with me to the Bronze, leaving some of your most loyal here as a precaution to deal with any threat the traitor, Selene, might pose . . . just in case."

The Master nodded dismissively to his latest lackey, then more significantly to Darla. "I have nothing to fear from the Black Queen, but I honor your prudence, my daughter. Take Luke and the fodder, along with as many others as you deem necessary and don't fail. Know as you do so, that you are my most loyal and most favored servant. I am proud of you."

He turned to the gathered throng. "The dawn approaches, my children. Go to your places and rest. Rest and prepare. Before the sun rises a second time, we will be on our way to final and true mastery of this pathetic world. All will bow before my will and those who don't will be eradicated. Our time has come!"

Another shout of joy rocked the cavern as the Master basked in the accolades of his faithful. Yes. It would be a good day; a good day indeed and a fitting beginning of his inevitable rule.

THE HARVEST:

Friday night came far quicker than the Professor would have liked, but Buffy was just as happy to have the waiting over and done with. She hated the waiting; hated it even more than the terror and evil. Terror and evil she could fight. Waiting just had to be put up with. The teams spent the day relaxing, of all things. A few more hours of training wasn't going to make much difference at this point, but being well rested and focused might.

Finally, shortly before sunset, dressed in their best party clothes, they gathered in the mansion's foyer to receive a final briefing. Looking over the two teams, Charles Xavier couldn't help but smile and yet there was a sad resignation and concern in the expression. They were so young to have so much depending on them; so young and so few. He couldn't have been prouder of them.

He nodded. "Be careful and stay alert, my X-Men. I would that you could have had weeks to prepare for this mission instead of days, but there's nothing we can do about that. As long as you stick with your teams and cover each other's' backs, you can do this. Trust your training."

Scott spoke up. "You all have your costumes. When the vamps start their attack, Angel is going to have someone kill the lights, giving you the opportunity to change without having to duck into a phone booth. The darkness won't bother the vamps and you all have superior night vision, plus the light enhancing lenses in you masks and headsets."

He paused. "It will also increase the panic, but that can't be helped. On the good side, however, the less the innocents can see, the less they'll have to be traumatized over. Given the tendency of people to find rational 'explanations' to things they can't understand, the whole thing's likely to be chalked up to a juvenile prank as long as we can keep them from dying."

Xavier took back over. "Each team will be taking one of the school's minivans to the party. You'll be arriving separately and know where to station yourselves: gold team on the floor; blue team in the upper levels. We expect the vampires to come through the main entrance, but have to be ready for anything. We don't know how they intend to breach Angel's wards and have no idea what effect it will have on the rest of the Bronze's security."

There wasn't a lot more to be said, so the teams headed out. The drive to town was quiet and tense. They all knew the stakes and not even Xander had the heart to make wisecracks.

When they finally pulled into the parking lot, Buffy looked around at the others and smiled. "Party time."

"Depends on your definition of party," Scott responded drily. "We're on the clock."

Blue Team was already in the gantries and platforms of the club when Gold Team arrived. Falcon saw the others arrive and sent them a quick message. "This is definitely the place, not that there was ever much question. All the vermin in have left the building. They must have sensed trouble coming. Even the birds have fled the immediate area."

Blending with the small, but rapidly growing crowd, Scott and Jean took to the dance floor. Buffy got an impish thought and took Riley's hand, leading him to the floor as well, but not before turning to the others. "Spread out and blend. You look like a Starfleet review."

Parker took a seat at the soda bar and Xander and Willow tried to dance, but failed miserably. After one song, they gave up and found a small table to sit at near the main entrance.

"I'm not much of a dancer," Riley warned Buffy on a private comm channel.

"Nobody is," Buffy informed him. "Some are just better at faking it than others are. Just move with the music and pretend to have fun. The place is already filling up. If the vamps want the biggest bang for their massacre, they'll have to make their move before too much longer."

"You seem awfully relaxed given the threats we're facing," he complimented her. "Particularly given the personal threat on your life."

"I'm just good at hiding it," she admitted. "Besides, becoming panic girl won't help. Dealing with the Harvest is likely to be the easy part. It's the other ritual that has me wigging, but we can't even deal with that until we deal with this first."

"You have an interesting definition of easy." He smirked slightly.

"I just hope no one brings a flame thrower to the party." Buffy laughed hollowly.

"Heads up, kiddies," Blade's growl came over the general comm. "Darla just walked up to the door."

"So that's how she plans to do it," Angel, who had been given a communicator of his own for the evening, said as the blonde vampire was stopped by an invisible barrier and pulled a knife from her blouse. "Angelus gave her that knife nearly three hundred years ago. Blast it. It could just do the trick."

Darla sliced downward with some difficulty, as if cutting through a sparkling curtain that resisted, but inevitably fell, allowing her gang to flood into the club.

"Crap," Xander gasped from his position. "Jesse's with them. Oh, man. This is gonna suck."

DEATH OF A FRIEND:

While the last vampire turned and padlocked the door, the demon that had been Jesse McNally swaggered up to the table with Xander and Willow. "So, where's your foxy friend, Cordelia? She here tonight? Our last encounter ended so unsatisfactorily. I've been practically dying for another go at her."

"Jesse, man," Xander sighed as Willow froze and squeaked. "I'm so sorry this happened to you."

"Don't be." Jesse didn't care how Xander seemed to know what he was as he morphed his appearance. "I'm not. It's the best thing that could have ever happened. You have no idea of the power I have. Now, I asked you a question. Where's your friend Cordelia? I wanna play with her before I haveta turn her over to the Vessel."

That's when the lights went out. Xander activated his watch, then grabbed and charged the table, throwing it at Jesse, who moved with preternatural agility. The table missed, but the explosion sent the young vampire flying, giving Willow time to recover and activate her own costume change.

"Who the hell's playing with the lights?" A large vampire leaped on the stage, sending the band fleeing, but not before he grabbed a girl and pulled her too him. "It won't save you."

An arrow suddenly pierced the vampire's hand, forcing him to release the girl with a grunt of pain.

"It won't have to," Hawkeye announced calmly. "I'm guessing you're the Vessel. Thanks for showing up. It saves us from having to hunt you down. I'm afraid you won't be funneling any power to the Master if we have anything to say about it."

"With the ward down," Kendra announced, "we have vampires coming in through the fire escapes and skylights. We're dealing with them."

Buffy and Riley quickly changed clothes and Riley transformed into his metal form. It was at that point that Buffy realized Riley didn't carry any of the standard vampire fighting arsenal. An instant later, she understood why. A vampire jumped down on them from one of the landings and Riley shoved his fist upward to meet him. The vamp impaled itself on Riley's metal arm and instantly dusted.

"I guess that's one way to deal with a bloodsucker," she quipped as another vamp attacked and the big guy calmly decapitated her with the palm of his hand. "You're sure efficient."

"Thank you," he responded as she kicked a vampire in the gut, then staked him through the back when he bent over. "You're not bad yourself."

Back near the entrance, Jesse made a dive for Willow, reveling in the thought of the terror he believed he was causing the mouse of a girl. She simply phased and he flew through her, right into a stake held by Xander, which went into the center of his chest.

"You missed." He gloated right up until the stake exploded, sending shards into his heart and dusting him.

"No, Jesse," Xander said sadly, "I didn't."

Xander then turned and expanded his quarterstaff, his eyes glowing red with rage as his tears fell unashamedly. "One of you bloodsuckers just cost me one of my oldest friends. I'd love to take all my grief and frustration out on you personally, but I don't know which one you are. Sucks for the rest of you, because now I'm just going to have to take it out on all of you."

The quarterstaff became a blur of motion except for the points where it hit a target or when Xander held the staff in the crook of his left arm to palm a marble, card or poker chip from one of the pockets in his duster. Nine vampires met their end at his hand before his rage was burned out, leaving him feeling hollow and miserable inside. None of it would bring Jesse back.

Willow was shy and retiring, and looked every inch the girl victim, but had several centuries of martial arts knowledge placed in her mind by the spirit of an immortal ninja called Ogun. Xavier managed to purge the invader, but Willow now knew enough about martial arts to offer classes for the other students at the Academy. She knew Kenpo, Hapkido, Judo, Savate, Krav Maga and Muay Thai, as well as several styles of Kung-Fu and a dozen other forms, but her favorite art was Aikido, because of its focus on turning an opponent's strength against them.

When used on vampires and other demons, the combination of her skills and powers left them partially merged with the ground, walls or furniture. This, of course, invariably resulted in death and in the case of vampires an explosive cloud of dust. She didn't acquit herself quite as well as Xander, but still tallied five kills to her tally in a very few minutes.

The girl didn't have much of a temper; much the opposite, really. Seeing the pain her friend, Xander, was going through and remembering the other friend whose life had been cut so short, however, made her madder than she'd once believed possible. It worried her, however, how much she enjoyed doing so.

BLUES:

Up above, three members of Blue Team focused first on clearing potential victims out of the battle zone and to the relative safety of the warded areas below. Storm lifted people on the wind and deposited them gently. Falcon flew people down and Havok grabbed people at whirlwind speed and took them down. For every civilian one of the others got down, Havok got three or more to safety.

The rest of the team had powers that weren't quite as effective for crowd control, so they took the brunt of the incoming attack while the three did their job. Anytime one or more vampires managed to corral a group of terrified teens, Blue Team was there to deal with them. Still, if the vampires' goal had been to simply dine, instead of feeding victims to the Vessel, dozens would have died.

Rogue manifested her psi-sword and began cutting vampires down like she wasn't even trying. Normally, the sword wouldn't kill, but vampires were different. She didn't understand the physics, but her psi-swords were even more effective against them than stakes.

She needed to land a solid hit, but it didn't need to be a decapitation and she didn't need to hit the heart. Vampires fell like chaff as she cathartically released all the rage and pain she normally kept contained and took it out on them. She took down seven vampires in as many seconds. As she faced last one she dissolved her sword, reached in with her gloved hand and ripped its heart out.

Although she normally barraged opponents with sarcasm and insults, she was silent this night. Her expression was totally neutral the whole time. She might just as easily been vacuuming a floor as ending the existence of seven vampires. Had any of her friends been in a position to notice, they would have been shocked; even horrified to see Rogue's total lack of passion and almost psychopathic focus.

Equinox used her flames to turn vampires into ash, then absorbed the flames in order to keep them from burning down the building. This, of course, left a trail of ice in her wake. She rode a flying skateboard that was comprised alternatingly of fire and ice. At one point a vampire leapt on her back only to be incinerated by her personal damage field.

The main thing she had to be careful of was to make sure her targets didn't run around once they were burning. She had a limit to the amount of heat she could absorb. Fortunately, the intensity of flame she could generate was more than sufficient to almost instantly kill a person or turn a vampire into ash. Her final vampire she froze solid to balance out her thermal energies, then let Falcon shatter the body.

Wild but efficient seemed to be the style the four kids rescued by Logan exercised. Even Falcon, the most sedate of the quartet, pulled some interesting stunts; at one point grabbing a vampire and throwing it with great force onto some stacked chairs where it was staked through the heart by a wooden chair leg.

Nightcrawler was pretty flashy in his own right once he was able to transform into his demon form. He quickly pulled three extremely sharp sabers from the athletic bag he had with him. With a sword in each hand and the third one gripped by his tail, he specialized in decapitations and made it look like a dance. Between his ability to blend with shadows and his teleportation powers, the vampires never knew where he was coming from.

Once she cleared the last of the innocents from the area, Storm summoned a tightly controlled whirlwind and had it suck up and shred a wooden table. The pair of vampires she caught in it were torn apart by hurricane force splinters until the eventually dusted. Whether some of the shards in the cyclone hit them in the heart or they just finally took so much damage that the demonic entities possessing the bodies vacated them was irrelevant. All that mattered was that there were two less vampires to worry about.

When another vampire tried to jump her, Storm wheeled and struck him with lightning. The amount of energy she channeled into that bolt would have killed an elephant. The vamp never stood a chance; neither did any of the others she'd face that night. Yes, vampires were notoriously difficult to kill, but they weren't invulnerable and Storm, like the rest of the team, knew exactly what it took.

It was Havok, however, with his impossible speed who would win the vampire lottery that night. Once the last of the non-combatants were cleared from the above ground area, he ran a final check for any stragglers, then went to work. He figured it was only fair to give the others a head start, after all. Once his search was finished, however, he took a stake in each hand and went to work.

He was a blur moving through the various gangways, ladders, stairs and platforms that formed the maze that was the Bronze above the floor. Wherever he went, vampires vanished, leaving clouds of dust in their place. He personally took out twelve before he ran out of targets.

Even Destiny was surprisingly at least somewhat effective given that this was her first real fight and she was still a reluctant Slayer at best. She didn't want to think about how she instinctively knew what each person intended to do and just focused on not being where an attack landed. She also didn't want to think how she seemed to know where they would be several seconds in advance, but didn't let that stop her from having a stake waiting when one of them appeared exactly where she knew he would.

As much as she hated what had been done to her, she had to admit that kicking butt was surprisingly enjoyable; even strangely fulfilling. Of course, she'd ever let anyone else know that. She illogically blamed Xavier for everything she'd been through in the past weeks. She'd never forgive him and his Slayers for taking away the life she loved.

The fight up in the rafters was brutal and short. The seven Slayers took out more than forty vampires without team injury or civilian casualty. Of course, the vamps up there were cannon fodder, but it was still a fairly impressive feat. Too bad they didn't have a moment to stop and pat themselves on the back.

GOLDEN:

Down below, it was Phoenix who took charge of clearing the potential victims away from the combat zone. With her combination of telepathy and telekinesis, it wasn't very hard. Still, the vamps did manage to gather nearly twenty kids on the stage where Luke was intimidating the band.

Hawkeye personally put a half dozen arrows into Luke's heart, but they didn't seem to have any effect on him. "Guess being the Vessel makes you immune to staking."

"It does." Luke gloated. "I'm going to begin the feeding with you. Yours will be but the first blood to empower my Master."

Hawkeye flipped back and kicked the vampire in the jaw before landing on his feet a few yards away. He hoped to draw the Vessel away from potential victims. He figured this vamp would have to be pretty dense to fall for it, but decided it was at least worth a try. No one was quite as surprised as he was when the creature leapt on him from the stage. He wasn't sure if it was stupidity or hubris, but it served his purpose. As long as the Vessel was focused on him, it wasn't draining the life from others. Of course letting the vampire focus on him didn't mean letting it hit him.

Longshot was extremely reluctant to use the greatest of his powers. He didn't have any control over them and this was a building filled with innocents. There was no way he wanted to accidentally bring the roof down or something. That didn't mean he wasn't doing his part. Not being able to rely on his special abilities caused him to focus all the more on his more general Slayer abilities and there, Parker Gunn would be over shadowed by no one.

It didn't hurt that he was also supernaturally lucky; not in the same way that Buffy was, where she subconsciously shifted the odds one way or another, but more in the sense that things simply fell into place for him to impossible degrees; particularly when he was fighting. Two vampires found this out the hard way when one of them tripped, not only falling on the stake Longshot just happened to be holding in the exactly the right position, but knocking his companion over so she fell on a randomly placed chunk of wooden debris.

When Longshot saw Hawkeye fighting the largest vampire he'd ever seen, he hadn't keyed into the earlier comments between the two in the first chaotic moments of the attack, but made the guess that this could be the Vessel they were looking for. None of the group of vamps holding hostages on the stage seemed to be feeding and they all watched the fight between the pair. It didn't take a genius to figure it out

Figuring it was worth the risk, he leaped over a pair of vamps trying to corner him, leaving them to both face plant into the club's floor rather embarrassingly, and landed behind the vampire named Luke. He shoved the big man in the center of the back, releasing his power as a coruscating rainbow of chaos cascaded over the creature. The result was nothing short of spectacular. The big vampire's entire body spasmed as bones broke, and muscles and cartilage tore, leaving him barely able to move, much less defend himself.

Scott considered the results critically in an instant. He was impressed. If this kid could learn to control his powers, he'd be a serious force to be reckoned with. For that matter, he'd be devastating no matter how much or little control he ever gained.

Seeing the Vessel go down in a scream of pain and rage, the other vampires reacted with a single panicked focus. They had to protect Luke. If the Harvest was aborted because they failed to protect the Vessel, there would be hell and far worse to pay if any of them survived long enough to return to the Master.

Hawkeye and Longshot were inundated by a wave of undead bodies before they could finish the big man off. The two more than held their own, sending several of the creatures to their final end, but were shoved back and away from their target, giving him time to recover from his catastrophic injuries, which he did in just a few seconds. They were too busy fighting to keep from being dragged under to stop him.

Seeing the exchange from where she fought beside Colossus, Buffy made a rapid decision. Scott and Parker were getting pummeled pretty badly. They were holding their own, but forced on the defensive; a losing proposition when fighting vampires. She figured Riley could more than handle himself, so she nodded to him, then leaped to the side, grabbed the Scythe, which she brought with her in an athletic bag of her own and ran towards the Vessel who was being helped up by the blonde who had broken the ward and another woman.

She brought the blade of the scythe down on the shoulder of the unfamiliar woman, cleaving almost cleanly through her torso in one swipe. "Suck this!"

All attention in the room suddenly turned to Buffy when she drew the weapon; at least the attention of her fellow Slayers and the surviving vampires. The vampires sensed the power being brought to play and tremored with fear and despair. The Slayers instinctively sensed it as well and were impressed; even hopeful.

The vampire named Luke stared at the weapon in Buffy's hand. The demon occupying the corpse recognized death when it saw it. Luke roared and tried to leap, but Buffy swung with all her might and severed his head with the axe blade. His body was ash before it hit the ground.

FAMILY BUSINESS:

The Harvest had been averted. The surviving vampires, now outnumbered by fourteen Slayers, panicked and ran. Four of them made it out of the building. Darla wouldn't be one of them. Even as she used her adrenalin charged vampiric strength to try to rip the chain and padlock her own men had used to secure the main entrance, a form as silent as death moved behind her.

Suddenly she stopped and spoke without turning. "Hello, Angelus."

"Darla." Angel's voice was cold as she turned to face him.

"Congratulations." Her voice dripped with contempt. "You and your little pets won the night. It won't matter in the end, of course. The Master's final victory is unstoppable."

"We've done pretty well up to now."

Seeing what was about to happen, Buffy called out and hurled the scythe. "Angel. Catch."

The man born Warren Worthington III, who terrorized the world for nearly three centuries as Angelus, the demon with the face of an angel, caught the weapon with one hand without turning to look, spun it and plunged the stake end into the black heart of the woman who originally condemned him to this existence. "Good bye, Darla."

Miles away, the Master, sensing the loss of the link he shared with the Vessel screamed in fury. His minions had failed him. Then he felt the death of his most beloved and knew in his ancient bones that Angelus had to have been responsible. Screaming again; this time in loss and frustration, he swore in his heart to bring hell itself down on the traitor and anyone else involved in this debacle.

Back at the Bronze, as Buffy walked up to him, and the other Slayers gathered around, Angel considered the weapon, then handed it back to her. "Nice weapon. I've heard legends about it for centuries, but I wasn't sure it was real until tonight."

She smiled. "An old friend discovered it was being guarded in an old convent east of LA. He took me to it and had me pull it from a big rock."

He nodded. "Heck of a friend."

She sighed. "He was. I never admitted it while he was still alive, but he was. He told me to never disrespect it and save it for the big battles where it could make a real difference."

Once they all changed back into street clothes and weapons were secured back into athletic bags, Angel signaled for the lights to be turned back on. "Okay, folks. The excitement's over. I do apologize for the confusion. Someone thought it would be funny to cut the main breaker and play some stupid mind games to terrorize people. They've been dealt with and thrown out. I can assure you they'll never be welcome here again."

He laughed as people began to absorb the story. By dawn, everyone would swear it was the gospel truth. Even after nearly five hundred years, Angel never ceased to be amazed at how people would buy just about any excuse not to have to admit that vampires and demons actually existed. He hoped that never had to change.

He signaled towards the stage area. "The party can now continue! For the rest of the night, food and drinks are on the Bronze. Strike up the band!"

Hopefully, this year's "End of the Summer Party" at the Bronze would be talked about for months; not for the body count, but as the best party of the year. Blue Team, Gold Team, Angel and Logan wouldn't be able to enjoy it, however. As the food and sodas flowed, the broken furniture was cleared away, and the patrons flooded back to the dance floor without a thought of where all the dust on the floor came from, the unsung heroes gathered in one of the backrooms just off the main floor.

"Good work, people," Hawkeye offered a rare compliment, but followed it with a rapid admonition. "That's just one of our jobs tonight, however. The Master's nest has probably been decimated, but we still have to deal with the Black Queen. Phoenix, any word from the other teams?"

"Nothing yet," she told him, "but the night is still young. The Professor wants Gold Team to remain in place here while Blade takes Blue Team to the old church Selene's been using and tries to find a trail they can follow. Mirage is leading Red Team and Cannonball is leading Silver Team. They're already out patrolling the city. There's also a Black Team out there somewhere. We've got nearly forty Slayers and Watchers in town tonight. So far, they've run into some solo vampires and a couple small groups, but still no sign of a coordinated effort."

"They will." Scott nodded and turned to Logan. "Good hunting. Call us if you need any help."

After Logan and Blue Team left, Scott put a hand on Parker's shoulder. "Thanks for the save, Longshot. You good? You got pretty heavily pummeled after you took down the Vessel."

Parker shrugged. "A little bruised and sore, but functional. I'll be feeling it in the morning, but right now, I'm good."

Scott rubbed his neck and grimaced meaningfully. "We'll both be feeling it in the morning."

He moved to Buffy. "I knew you had that weapon, of course, but I've never seen you use it before. Impressive."

Buffy considered the weapon in her hands. "Wesley always told me to save it for the big stuff. Seems a waste to use it against something I can kill with a stake . . . . It seems . . . I don't know . . . disrespectful, I guess. Know what I'm saying?"

He nodded. "I understand. Mr. Giles says it's linked to Excalibur, of all things. Keep it close. You're likely to need it again before this is over."

THE BLACK QUEEN:

In the shadows outside the Bronze, the Black Queen watched as the pitiful dregs of the Master's force fled with their tails between their legs. Her guess had been right. She could sense the presence of her prey inside. Her blood practically sang with the power of it. She could also sense that the sheep lover's wards were now down. She'd have to thank the Master for opening the door for her . . . just before she killed him, of course.

With a regal nod, she sent her forces flooding in through the openings before those inside could secure them. She had more than twice the force the Master had sent and surely some of the defenders must have sacrificed their lives to stop that attack. She had little concern regarding her chances; not that she intended to leave anything to chance; particularly not with that annoying little man, Blade, having been seen in the area. She would overwhelm the place with sheer force and not give them even a second to breathe.

Angel and Gold Team were just about to start filtering back into the party when the first screams reached them. There was no conversation. The X-Men changed into their uniforms and rushed out of the back room almost as a single unit. Angel sighed and hoped they all survived. For that matter, he just hoped the Bronze survived the night.

There was no darkness to cover them this time and the element of surprise wasn't on their side. By the time Buffy stepped through the door, more than a dozen partiers and staff were already either dead or dying and more vampires than she had ever seen before were flooding into the Bronze from every exit. Averting the Harvest had been a cake walk compared to what they now faced. She hated it when she was right.

She whispered one word over her communicator. "Flashbulb."